Big earnings on Friday: GE, Morgan Stanley

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Investors trained the spotlight on General Electric Co. among the handful of high-profile companies that reported quarterly results on Friday.

General Electric
GE, -1.19%
reported a fourth-quarter net profit of $4.01 billion, or 38 cents a share, up 8% from $3.73 billion, or 35 cents, earned a year earlier. Quarterly revenue showed above-consensus 4% growth, to more than $39.3 billion.

Earnings from continuing operations reached 41 cents a share from 37 cents, with operating earnings for the latest quarter pegged at 44 cents a share. Fairfield, Conn.-based GE had been expected to turn a profit of 43 cents a share, according to a poll of analyst estimates by FactSet. Read more on General Electric’s quarterly results.

China's economic comeback

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China's gross domestic product rose 7.9% in the fourth quarter of 2012 from a year earlier. The WSJ's Aaron Back explains how the economy rebounded back after a two-year slowdown.

Morgan Stanley
MS, -1.42%
reported a fourth-quarter profit of $481 million, or 25 cents a share, a reversal from a net loss $275 million, or 15 cents, in the final three months of 2011. Quarterly revenue rose 23% to $6.97 billion.

SunTrust Banks Inc.
STI, -0.05%
posted a fourth-quarter net profit of $350 million, or 65 cents a share, up from $71 million, or 13 cents, earned in the year-earlier period. The Atlanta-based company’s quarterly revenue improved to $2.29 billion from the prior year’s $2.05 billion, although net interest income dropped and its provision for loan losses held all but flat at $328 million. Analysts, on average, had been looking for SunTrust to show fourth-quarter earnings of 61 cents a share. Read more on SunTrust.

And State Street Corp.
STT, -0.41%
tallied a fourth-quarter net profit of $468 million, or $1 a share, up from $371 million, or 76 cents, earned a year earlier. Quarterly revenue rose 6%.

On an adjusted basis, the Boston-based company said it would have earned $1.11 a share, up from the prior year’s 99 cents. The analyst consensus had been that State Street would show earnings of $1.01 a share for the latest quarter.

Rounding out the major companies reporting results before the bell, fourth-quarter profit on an adjusted basis came in on the mark for oilfield-services giant Schlumberger
SLB, +0.22%

Net earnings fell to $1.36 billion, or $1.02 a share, from $1.41 billion, or $1.05 a share, in the final three months of 2011, as quarterly revenue rose to $11.17 billion from $10.3 billion.

Earnings from continuing operations, adjusted to exclude charges and credits, came to $1.08 a share for the latest quarter, matching the FactSet-compiled consensus. Revenue came in ahead of the consensus view of $10.81 billion. Read more on Schlumberger.

Johnson Controls
JCI, -1.04%
considered a bellwether owing to its status as a supplier to the buildings and automotive industries, posted net earnings of $354 million, or 52 cents a share, for the first quarter ended Dec. 31, down from $424 million, or 62 cents, a year earlier. Quarterly sales ticked modestly higher, to $10.42 billion.

Chairman and CEO Stephen Roell characterized the results as “in-line” with management’s expectations, with global demand “softer” than that seen in the first quarter of fiscal 2011. The consensus of analysts had been for Johnson Controls to turn a first-quarter profit of 51 cents a share. Roell also remained cautious on the company’s short-term outlook, saying earnings for the first half are likely to be “significantly lower” than in fiscal 2012. Johnson Controls projected second-quarter earnings at 40 cents to 42 cents a share.

However, “we continue to have confidence in our full-year guidance for higher revenues and earnings in fiscal 2013,” Roell said. Read more on Johnson Controls.

Quarterly profit rose to $132 million, or 94 cents a share, from the prior year’s $130 million, or 86 cents. There were nearly 7% fewer weighted average shares outstanding than a year earlier, reflecting the company’s $333 million in stock buybacks during the latest quarter.

The consensus of analysts had been that Rockwell Collins would post earnings of 89 cents a share

Sales fell to $1.06 billion from $1.09 billion generated in the first three months of fiscal 2012, reflecting a lower top-line contribution from government systems. As revised, Rockwell Collins now anticipates earnings in a range between $4.45 and $4.65 a share for fiscal 2013, as a result of the net impact from the extension of federal research-and-development tax credits. Read more on Rockwell Collins.

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